Undoubtedly, we live in an age where information is highly valued.
Companies spend billions of dollars to manage information and integrate
it with every facet of their business to provide better products and
services and improve the bottom line. There is a worldwide industry that
deals with the management and deployment of information. This industry
is referred to as Information Technology or IT for short. The
industrialized world has recognized the value and power of IT in
securing its prosperity and economic vitality. Some of these
governments have allocated enormous sums of moneys to build
infrastructures to support the reliable transfer and efficient
management of information. For example, the US has spent billions of
dollars to establish a robust and fast Internet structure to support
electronic commerce. The recent vBNS project (or Internet II) is an
example of such structure that is available to research labs and
universities throughout the country. Currently, vBNS is an OC-12 SONET
technology that operates at 622 Mbit/second and plans are underway to
support 2.4 Gigabit/second (OC-48). It will be used to move text,
audio, and video in real-time to support applications that were
unimaginable in the past. Examples of these applications are virtual
reality, video conferencing, and virtual medical applications.

To a lesser extent, many developing countries have recognized the value
and power of IT in advancing the economic fortunes and improving the
overall efficiency of communications. In fact, many of them have
appropriated large sums of moneys for IT and began to build a basic
infrastructure to support the reliable and speedy transfer of
information. These governments have even helped establish many
businesses to develop applications, conduct training, and provide basic
product and services. In many cases, the results appear to spur
economic rejuvenation and enhance the ability to better serve the
national interests. More importantly, the populations of these
countries feel that they are part of something that is exciting,
progressive, and challenging. Something that enables them to exhibit
creativity and freedom. A technological tool that allows them to have
unfettered access to all sorts of information with a simple click of a
button and without having permission from anyone. The amount of wealth
that has been and is being created by IT and the Internet is
staggering. Not even the industrial revolution of the last century has
created so much wealth so quickly that spans all classes of a society.
In my opinion, IT technology represents an information paradigm shift
from governments and large organizations to individuals. It gives the
individual the ability to create new opportunities, to be creative,
independent, and free. Individuals can have their own piece of the
cyberspace in which they can exhibit their background, views, heritage,
interests, achievements, start their business, etc.

Therefore, Information Technology creates an environment in which access
to information that spans a wide range of subject area and a variety of
viewpoints are easily accessible. Sadly, Libya has been conspicuously
absent from the scene and has not capitalized on the enormous business
opportunities that can be gained by the deployment of a country-wide
Intranet infrastructure to benefit its citizens. I suspect that the
Libyan government is still straggling with the idea of giving freedom to
its citizens and giving them
unfettered access to information. True, there are many web sites that
promote government view and many opposing views. However, there does
not appear to be a strategy of IT deployment within the Libyan society.
In fact, Libya is one of a handful of countries in the entire world that
has no public Internet infrastructure, not even all components of its
Domain Name (.ly) has been claimed. In a recent study by the Reporters
sans frontieres, Libya has been declared as one of twenty countries
that are enemies of the Internet. The only other country that has not
claimed its entire DNS is Afghanistan!!

The government must realize that the time to control, oppress and deny
Libyans of basic freedoms is gone. It must open up to the information
age and develop long-rage strategic plans for the deployment of a
country-wide Intranet that would enable the Libyan people to benefit
from the enormous wealth that is being created world-wide by the IT
revolution.